Gadgets R Us

Leah and I went shopping Friday afternoon for the first time in way too long. We hit the makeup counters at Saks, where a girl young enough to be my daughter commented on my . . . ahem . . . Brooke Shields eyebrows. She's lucky I didn't snatch her across that counter and rip out her hair. I found a lovely new lipstick at Bobbi Brown but got distracted and didn't buy it. (Not that I actually needed it. I have twelve or fifteen Bobbi lipsticks -- and I ain't gonna start counting the glosses. But "need" isn't the point of shopping at Bobbi. "Need" is when you get stuff like foundation or concealer or bronzer. The real fun is when you buy the stuff you WANT, like lip stuff and the eye stuff and the cheek stuff.)

We both got a hand massage and bought some wonderful cream from someplace that begins with a C, I think. Don't snicker over my bad memory. Ninety-nine percent of everything I use comes from Bobbi; I don't have trouble remembering that. The massage was incredibly relaxing, considering that it was just fingers and palms getting treated.

After a stop at Starbucks (frozen chai tea for me, some sort of complicated coffee-caramel-something-or-other for Leah, we headed to what could easily become my high holy place (buy more books! Rach needs to shop!): Williams-Sonoma.

They had a stove in there for a cool thirty-eight-grand and change. Yep, the price of a killer truck. It was part gas, part electric, had a 20,000 BTU burner, a French plaque (I'd never even heard of such a thing), a grill, four more burners, two ovens, two warming drawers, and came in a gorgeous blue but with really tacky looking gold handles, knobs and latches. I love to cook. I love kitchen stuff. But no way in my life could I even contemplate spending $38,000 on a stove.

Not that I have a house that would be suitable for a $38,000 stove.

They have all kinds of cool stuff at W-S. We debated the value of a stock pot (hammered copper, $800+) that was practically too heavy to lift empty. A $300 knife. (Not knife set; just one knife.) A truly tacky (and astonishingly ugly) hot pink and bright yellow table cloth. I drooled over the bottles of 25-year-old balsamic vinegar and the vanilla-bean-infused sugar. (I'm running low on sippin' vanilla. Gonna have to buy more soon.) We loved the ceramic egg cartons filled with bright-colored alabaster eggs and wondered whether the grandkiddo could gum a pink-and-yellow Easter marshmallow chick.

After all the looking, though, I just bought one thing: an ugly yellow garlic peeler -- the rubber kind that looks like a crooked piece of manicotti. Leah swore it worked like a miracle, and she wasn't kidding. On the way home, Robert and I stopped to buy garlic, and I peeled two full heads in, like, five minutes. It's too cool! He loves roasted garlic on sliced French bread lightly fried in olive oil, and I think I've finally got the timing down perfect for roasting peeled garlic. It was pretty damn delicious. I don't know how I lived my entire life without this too-cool gadget! Rachel4:30 PM